Announcing A Retirement

No, I’m not retiring from my job—I obviously don’t have nearly enough money to do that yet—nor am I retiring from blogging (though I actually have considered doing that, too). I’m retiring from an activity I’ve done pretty consistently for the past six and half years. Over the course of the past few weeks, I’ve come to an inevitable conclusion: I can’t blog about politics anymore, especially the stuff relating to Russia/Eurasia/Eastern Europe.

Let me emphasize that: I just can’t do it anymore.

Over the years, I’ve gradually scaled back my politics blogging. Remember, before I had this blog, I wrote a different blog that was a lot more politically focused. Here’s a short timeline of my political interest and involvement:

2007, middle: I start my first blog. It’s focused more on stuff like my pets than on politics.

2007, late: I experience a “political awakening” almost overnight in which politics goes from boring to exciting. The awakening was a result of a controversy in a blogosphere in which I participated. To this day, I can still spout off facts about obscure European political parties that no one on this side of the Atlantic cares about.

2008-2009: American politics becomes a lot less fun, but I’ve always liked the international stuff more anyway, so I tend to stick to that.

2011: I decide that I just don’t want to write my old blog anymore. I didn’t know this at the time, but I think this was the beginning of my politics burnout. I start a new blog that I intend to be less political… but I feel obliged to write some political stuff anyway.

2012: American politics becomes even worse than before, which I didn’t think was possible. Depressing lesson learned: never say something is the worst it can get because it always could be worse.

2013, end: Protests erupt in Ukraine. I’m in grad school by this time, so in between my studies, I follow them very closely.

2014: beginning: After Viktor Yanukovych is forced out of power, Russia moves to retake Crimea. (I say “retake” because Crimea once was a part of Russia—the Russian Empire, to be exact.) With this real life incident, a war erupts on Twitter. (See explanation below for more details on the Twitter war.)

2015: I decide that I am done with dealing with this stuff and stop following most English-language news relating to Russia.

Ever since all this stuff with Ukraine started—which was in November 2013, though it really, really started to pick up in the first months of 2014—the Russia-watching environment online has become incredibly toxic. (I’ve blogged about this before.) On any given day, you can observe the following exchanges between the pro-Russian side and the pro-Ukrainian side, usually taking place on Twitter:

Someone on the pro-Russian side criticizes Poroshenko. This may be founded or unfounded criticism.

Someone on the pro-Ukrainian side gets mad and calls the pro-Russians fascist Putinist thugs who are worse than dogs (or something to that extent).

Both sides devolve into a storm of ad hominem attacks, often using foul language. The original point is completely lost (assuming there was an original point, because often there wasn’t) and anyone who tries to step into the fray to point out that maybe both sides make good points, or this time a certain side is right, is dragged in and insulted, too.

The problem is this whole “us vs. them” attitude that prevails. As long as that’s in place, independent thinking is discouraged because people are punished for not toeing the party line. And I’m sick of it.

I don’t really read English-language news anymore, at least when it relates to politics. I still read the Russian news because I want to keep up on my Russian, but I do my best to avoid anything relating to the Ukraine conflict. I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to blog about, and I certainly don’t want to discuss it with anyone anymore.

The thing is, over the past year or so, I’ve found other hobbies that are a lot more important and more fulfilling to me than Russia blogging and Russia watching ever were. I’m getting more and more into my fiction writing, especially since I started the Writing Challenge. I’ve met a lot of people on Twitter who also are writing fiction, and they’re a lot nicer than most of the Russia watchers I know. I’ve started doing crafts, specifically knitting and crochet, again. I’m playing violin, too—not as much as I’d like since I’m busy with work, but half an hour of practice is better than nothing, I figure.

So what does this mean for my blog? I’m still going to be writing it, that’s for sure. It’s just that the focus may shift a bit. I want to get into foreign language blogging more. I love the Russian language, so I have a lot to say about that. I also plan to blog about language learning in general. I definitely want to blog about writing. And I’m sure I’ll come up with random things here and there, since I usually do.

To any readers who did read this blog for the politics, I’m sorry. I just really can’t do it anymore. Since making this decision to stop obsessively following politics, I have felt better and more content than I have in a long time. The Russia-watching people of the internet will get along fine without me, I’m sure. (And even if they didn’t, I’m kind of at the point of not caring anymore. Sorry.)

And now, I am going to go read a nice book that has absolutely nothing to do with politics, Russia, or a combination of the above topics.

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About

I'm Natalie. By day, I work at The Bank. By night, I do awesome things like write this blog. On here, I write about anything Russia-related, foreign languages (I'm a fluent Russian speaker), history, and literature. Read more here.